What is an
audio book?

Audiobooks are readings of books
down by usually one reader. They can be Abridged or Unabridged (more about that
later). They can also be dramatised with multiple actors reading different
characters.

Why listen to
Audiobooks?

Human Beings have long had an
oral tradition. We used to sit around the campfire listening to stories.
Children love having stories read to them. Audiobooks are in that oral
tradition. More than that you can listen to audio books when you are doing something
else. Many people get terribly car sick (well car sick, bus sick, plane sick...any kind of
motion sick), and for them there is no way to read a book while in a car or a bus (or
anything moving). An audio book is fantastic on along car/bus/plane/boat
journey. The just time flies as you are taken away on an imaginary journey that
is just like reading (except you can keep you eyes closed)

Audio Books are great when you are doing boring things.
When you do the vacuuming, cleaning the house .... Take an audio book while you do the gardening, taking a walk ..

Audio Books are good for all
sorts of other people

Audio Books are great for children on
long car trips, boys (its usually boys) who don't like to read - get them to
listen to an adventure Audio Book and they will be hooked. - Good for older
people with failing eyesight. Sitting in hospital, or recuperating from an
illness can be much more enjoyable listening to an Audio Book.

Truck Drivers and other long distance
drivers often use Audio Books for fatigue management. Its a great way to keep
you alert and attentive on a long drive.

Audio Books can give you a
different perspective.

For example listening to an Audio
Bible can be totally different to reading the Bible. Some Bible Audio Books are
voiced with multiple actors voices giving the Bible a theatrical feeling. Some
other Audio Books have been recorded with multiple voices - BBC Lord of the
Rings, the Star Wars Trilogy, the New "Dune" AudioBook. These Audio Books become more like movie versions
of books than standard Audio Books.

Abridged vs
Unabridged

Abridged Audiobooks, and a cut-down
version of the book, which may be anything to a quarter of its length to three
quarters. Unabridged Audiobooks have every word of the book read.

Learning new things with
AudioBooks

There are many Business Audio
Books , audio books that allow you listen to great business ideas while you are
driving around to appointments. Audio Books like Psychology of Selling, Freakonomics
and Buffetology. There are some
great History Audio Books titles as well. Stephen Ambrose Band
of Brothers , John M Barry The Great
Influenza, Bill Bryson - A Short
History of nearly Everything.

Audio Books make great
gifts

An Audio Book is something
different to give as a gift. Just find out what sort of player they have (e.g.
do they have a tape player, a CD player at home or in their car) and get the
sort of book you think they would like. There are plenty of bestsellers around
where you can't go to far wrong, and you can never go wrong buying a child a
Harry Potter Audio Books (there are six of them now - soon to be seven!)

The disappointments of Buying Audio
Books on-line

Some Audio Books sellers have the Audio
Book they are selling ready to post, but most do not.

Most On-line AudioBook sellers are what are called drop
shippers. This means that the Audio Book seller has either NO audio books
at all, or maybe a few of the best sellers. This means most time when they get
your on-line purchase they turn around and then order it from the publisher. The
publisher will send it to the on-line retailer and then the on-line retailer
will send it to you once they have received it. The problem with this is its
really slow!. You are relying on the publisher not the on-line retailer , and if
the publisher is busy (Christmas, holidays etc) you will just have to wait.
Worse still is when an on-line retailer sells you an Audio Book that has gone
out of stock at the publisher. This will take time to find out, and in the end
all you will get is a refund ...no Audio Book.

We order Audio Books from publishers all the time, andwe know how
often they suddenly go out of stock (even really popular titles), or are really
slow in delivery. Trust an online Audio Book
seller who really has the Audio Book in their hands - ask them if you are
not sure!

Most of the biggest on-line Audiobook
sellers in Australia are drop shippers - they do not have audiobooks in
stock!

Tape Audio Books have been
around the longest. Advantages are, that they are very robust. You can
have them rattling around in your car for long trips and play them many
times, and they will be fine. Libraries lend out audio books in tape
format for this reason. Disadvantages are, that new books are harder to
get in tape format now. If you can get Audio Books in tape format they are
harder to get, and sometimes will only be in abridged format.

Audio
Books on CD

Audio Books on CD are now the
most common Audio Book format available, and are generally easier to
obtain than Tape Audio Books. Unabridged Audio Books are more commonly
available now, resulting in some very large books now being available in
Audio Books format - for example Eldest by Christopher Paolini is 20 CDs!
totalling 23.5 hours of Audio Book!. Harry Potter Audio Books also have
between 10 and 20 disks. The disadvantage of Audio Books on CD however is
that despite what we were told when CD's where introduced years ago, they
are not very tough. You need to keep the CD's protected, and I suggest
that when you travel with a CD Audio Book you buy a separate CD holder
with soft sleeves that you can protect your CD Audio Book with. They are
better protection than the boxes the CD Audio Books come in.

Audio Books on mp3

This is the newest most
exciting development in Audio Books. There are not a lot of titles around,
but they give you great flexibility of how you play you Audio Book. Mp3
Audio Books are provided to you in disk format, and generally they are
only one, or sometimes two disks. You can play these Audio Books on your
disk based mp3 player. The great thing however is that you can copy them
over to your iPOD, or Pocket PC, or Palm, or flash based mp3 player.
Alternatively you can play the Audio Book on your computer and listen
while you surf!

The House of Oojah - New Zealand

We sell AudioBooks for New Zealand online, Talking Books, Books on Audio - CD Tape and mp3 formats. Learn to speak a language. AudioBook learning. Unabridged and abridged Children's Audiobooks and Fiction for Children